I won August!

Mumsey, aka my mother, aka Grandma Eck, aka great grandma, made a valiant effort this month. There were times when she might have been 6 or so games behind, but the final score for August was 16 to 15. Thrills galore during the month.

6th Win!

I won again today but so far I am alive. My mother is disgruntled but still has hope for a future win.

Yikes!!!

I am ahead 5 games this month and it is only the 5th! Check in tomorrow to see if I am still alive or if she has broken my winning streak. Too bad my luck only applies to the daily cribbage. Or at least this momentary lucky run.

What I have discovered

The daily cribbage game is much like the rest of life, best kept in the moment. Many times in July, I thought I should write about the just finished game. There never was the spark needed to relive the thrill of the moment. Yes, there were many peaks and valleys along the way to the final deciding moment on July 31. There just was never the energy to tell the story. The thrill in the moment expended all available energy. Thus I leave you on the edge of your seats for most likely a very long time. I will tell you that July was most unusual in that on the 30th we were tied 15 to 15. It truly was a cliffhanger month! I did win on the 31st and have now won both the 1st and the 2nd of August. Hope my mother wins tomorrow or she will be getting exceedingly agitated! And we do not want that!!!! And I cannot even comfort her with the news that she is ahead in the months of the year as so far I have that honor. So until next time, whenever that might be, you can trust in the fact that the daily cribbage is very much alive and living in the thrill of the moment!!!!!!

Over half of the month is gone.

I am now three games ahead for the month. It has been that way on and off for the past week. First two than three than two than three ahead. I am certainly not complaining about that state of daily cribbage but my mother most likely has another story to tell...
We have both had our times of 21 point hands and then 2 point hands. No real cliff hangers to note, although one day I was one point shy of a win.
The first picture is a jigsaw puzzle we recently put together. That has been our secondary mania for the last few weeks. Now I am experiencing withdrawal as we have no more to do for now. It had become the daily jigsaw puzzle as well.
The second picture is our crop of volunteer hollyhocks that cheerfully come up every year all on their own. I did initially bring them to the area by casting a few collected seeds from my daily walk. (Ooooh, another potential blog "The Daily Walk." ) And of course this picture has the necessary capture of one of my fingers for all to see.

Had to do it.

It is day 12. Up until today every two days in this month we were tied. My mother likes it that way. She is even generous in saying it is your turn to win today when she is that one day ahead. Today I ruined the perfect tie combination by skunking her (she lost by over 30 points for those of you who lack basic cribbage speak, it was 33 points to be exact). I sensed that her feathers were ruffled by this so I resorted to counting her victories last month. Remember she was so far ahead last month that we did not bother to total the win/loss tally for that month. Today was the day to salve her wounded cribbage soul. The count, for those of you holding your breath, was 16 wins for her and 13 for me. Again, I know June has 30 days but this time I know why there are only 29 games to count. It was that lost day due to roses and other assorted yard work. The amazing thing so far this month, besides the record amount of ties, is how the individual count evolved throughout each game. I would get a 24 hand along the way and be way ahead and then she would get a 24 hand to catch up or vice versa. Cribs were also fantastic in that we would each along the way get 12 point cribs, all just by luck. There truly is never a dull day at the daily cribbage.

The month so far.

I am pleased to report that as of today, I am one game ahead. Yesterday we were tied 3-3 so someone had to be the tie-breaker today. Yesterday's game was very plain vanilla, no real significant cliff hanging. But today's was a thriller! We each had 24 point hands at some time in the game. Just when I thought I would skunk her, she received her 24 points to round the corner. I was actually happy for her as there is nothing worse than an extremely disgruntled loser. And I still seemed to be sufficiently in the lead. For those of you avid cribbage players you know it is those final hands and who counts first near the end that is critical. However, sometimes all can seem so right and the game is snatched away. It is in those heated moments of final play that I will shout out "You stole the game!" and she does not even care. Today, though, I calmly crossed the well-deserved finish line. Tune in next time for future exciting cribbage duels.